


The Golden Path

by Vixenmage



Series: Dalenë [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: Gen, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-11-19
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-26 06:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vixenmage/pseuds/Vixenmage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A girl is looking for her best friend, who vanished when the Temple of Mara took her into custody after her guardian's death. Something of a deconstruction; how does Sheogorath populate the Shivering Isles?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In the fields, twisting, turning spikes, all colored like breathing emeralds and soft, hissing a silent song against each other and the fence-post when they rubbed. Beautiful wasn't a strong enough word - and the fence itself, all rough with inscrutable patterns; it would take years to learn the lay, follow the grain of the wood into the deep crack -- ah!

A tiny black spider blinked up at her from the joint of the crossbar, dew beading on the silken fur of its legs. The web behind it shone once in the light, briefly, like a single chiming note of music in the stillness.

Dalenë watched the pretty spider, with eyes like tiny beads of glass, as it raised one leg, then another, before scurrying back into the fence. As it wound into the darkness, she grinned and stood - the tree caught her eye from across the hill, and she ran to it, rejoicing in the rhythm of her feet against the soil, the cool grass poking her ankles and, as she neared it, the feel of the roots on her skin. Like a web of life, they seemed to grow, filling her mind and eye, her feet were dwarfed by the roots of the very world, Tamriel was opening to her like a wind-storm...

She knelt, feeling her hands tiny against the giant, world-sized roots, they were towering over her - parallel, not tall - and she found herself unable to stand for the dizziness of it.

Dalenë laid there for hours, feeling larger than the sky, small enough to be swallowed by a mote of dust. She rubbed her fingers together, feeling worlds collide between them. Absorbed by the vastness of the world, she didn’t notice the hooves approaching on the road - it was, after all, on the other side of the fence, and thus, eternities away.

The soldier’s voice was just short of derisive in abstract amusement. "And just what are you doing, Dunmer? Worm-speech?"

Dalenë blinked. Normally, common sense would dictate, even to her, that she say nothing and move on, but the manic ecstasy of the moment had made her naive. She held up the stone she'd found.

"The vein in this, the greenish color - it goes all the way through. See, it comes out on this side; what do you think the shape is, all the way through? Like a river, but not flat on the top-- almost like a secret tunnel - you see?"

The soldier spurred his horse on, muttering something under his breath. It was by no means an unfamiliar turn of phrase to Dalenë. "Mad as the mist and snow," her own people, the Dunmer, would say. The Imperial saying, she thought, had something to do with Argonians and deserts. Typically unkind and high-nosed - they were Imperials, after all. Turning the stone in her hand, she wandered off, away from the road again.

The lavender smelled good, but that didn't make it edible. She knew that. She also didn't care. Chewing it was still a sort of comfort as it began to rain, pattering arrhythmically all around on the leaves. The cool drops felt good on her hair and face, as she walked through the forest - not aimlessly. Her memory was not that short. But there were torches - that way. They might be the friendly kind, those. She had a feeling there would be torches when she found the place, but these weren't them. The friendly kind were the ones who would tell her she needed a chapel, maybe Akatosh or Alessia, and take away her pretty rock and make her pray to the Nine with nice, happy words that didn't match the world or her, or maybe even the Nine.

Nice words, like nice people, were not things she had any stomach for anymore. Rather than approach the lights, she found a hollow log and curled up, safe inside, where she could still see the rain shining on the rocks in mingled torchlight, until her eyes closed.

* * *

 _"Dalenë, can you please be normal for a few seconds?"_

 _The tall Bosmer glared intimidatingly at her, not quite succeeding - he never could keep the laughter out of his eyes for long. Dalenë smiled apologetically and took a leap off of the railing, landing with a pirouette in the dust._

 _"Sorry, Solon. What's up?"_

 _He dropped an armload of cloth, various colors peeping out of the rolls. She forced herself to look away from the textures of the weaving, at his face - raised eyebrow and all._

 _"My brother and Iasta, that bloody useless courier he hired, have missed their negotiated price by half. Can you get this to Chorrol in the next day's time?"_

 _Dalenë grinned and sketched a bow. "At your service, as ever," she said, taking the folded cloth under one arm. "My speed shall rival the Black Horse!"_

 _Solon rolled his eyes and cuffed his apprentice, half in jest. "Off with you, then," he grumbled, turning back to his dyes._

 _Mysterious shadows played over the cloth as she bundled it into the messenger bag, regardless of light or angle. The voices of the crowd in the marketplace stretched to eternity, thin and high and winding, and the faces in the stones leered at her from the walls as she left, running like a deer with the heart, suddenly, of a sullen mudcrab._

 _Quidel teased her as she stretched to run, his fuzzy ears swiveling about. He said nothing, but made silly faces until she burst out laughing; the guard at the gate looked at her suspiciously, but she hardly cared as she sprinted out onto the bridge, her tall Khajiit friend keeping pace on the railing._

* * *

The St. John's Wort seemed to clear her head for a while, but by the next night, her thoughts had gone wild again. It was the water that did it - transparent except where the light was direct, opaque and white. But it ran so quickly, it was hard to tell. She tried to watch the stones on the bottom, as they alternately grew and shrank; the muted tones were a nice change from the riotous colors of the wildflowers all around. But after a while, the growing and shrinking of the riverstones made her mind curl, so she closed her eyes and tried to shut out the humming in the background.

 _Hmmmahhh, hnni-hahh, Huuulmmm Nnnahmmmm..._

They sounded angry, somehow. they reminded her of the guards, and she curled up on the bank, humming herself to silence them. She was dimly aware that her body was rocking back and forth, but knew from experience that it would take more effort to stop the motion than it would to continue. With no one around to be alarmed or angry, it didn't matter.

* * *

 _"The real problem, of course, is your unwillingness to stop contemplating the end of the world long enough to take anything seriously." Quidel turned his head slightly, raising an eyebrow at her in challenge. "...That was not a challenge."_

 _"You're challenging my accustomed train of thought," Dalenë replied lazily, watching the clouds. "That totally counts."_

 _"...Well?"_

 _She glared at his reflection in the bay. "I don't contemplate the end of the world," she said finally. "I think about the edge of the world. Utterly different things."_

 _"You do get my point though, right? If you're going to actually accomplish anything in this world, you have to stop waiting for something Huge to happen. You have to focus on the here and now, sometimes."_

 _Dalenë grumbled inaudibly at him, shivering slightly in the breeze off the water. "I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, first of all, and second, if the world starts to end, would you want to be unprepared? I wouldn't."_

 _“How could you prepare for the end of the world?”_

 _She shrugged. "I just said it was the edge of the world, not the end. Totally different things, there."_

 _Quidel rolled his eyes. "Convenient distinction, that. Either way, speaking of everyday life being slightly important, I do believe you're due in Bravil, fair soon? Solon will not be happy if you're late."_

 _She stood, poking at the water one last time with a bare toe. "True. Then, dear Quidel, will you be so kind...?"_

 _The tall, reddish Khajiit grinned and made an elaborate, courtly bow, incongruous in the mud outside of Bravil, in the general direction of the city gate. "Your arm, milady?" Dalenë snorted and ducked under his outstretched hand. Laughing, they walked together into the city, leaving the gently lapping shores of Niben Bay behind._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An encounter with a well-dressed stranger; memories.

Dalenë leaned against the boulders, cool and comforting out of the heat of the afternoon sunshine, and tried to focus on a plan of action. It had been a long while since she'd been really forced to focus constructively, but the feeling of mental action came back easily enough. What would Solon - no, that was no good. What would Quidel tell her to do? His voice came to her mind, with some difficulty. It wasn't the same, but still made her smile.

"You want my help finding me? That does not seem wise. Or possible, if we're being completely honest."

She groaned and let her head fall back against the rock. "Helpful, that."

It had all happened so fast... though looking back, she could see the signs, she thought. She wouldn't be taken again - she saw the way they looked at her, as though figuring the quickest line of attack, just in case. Never again. That was why she couldn't go into cities, not anymore. They were always waiting, the guards... there were always the chapels, huge and menacing... Never again.

* * *

 _"No, there's no point in speculating, Solon. We do appreciate your interest, but there's no way to tell, not this early. No one could have thought, even two years, three years ago... you just can't tell. Obviously, come to us if she displays any... signs. But we really can't say."_

 _As if at fourteen years of age, she somehow couldn't understand a word, she thought. Or maybe it didn't occur to them that she might be listening, might have some interest in the very small, inconsequential matter of her future..._

 _Solon, his name was, and he had at least kept his voice low, unlike the priest of Mara who’d been discussing her so glibly. He’d been a figure of interest in her childhood, before things with her parents had gone so wrong; a tall Bosmer with closely cropped light brown hair, and green eyes. Unusually for a wood elf, their tint was more blue than brown. They were creased at the corners with laugh lines, but as they regarded the young elf, they looked concerned, worried, and preoccupied._

 _"I knew your parents well, Dalenë," he said, finally. "Up until last year, I considered them trusted friends. As it stands, I can hardly fault you, who may have been most hurt by these events, for the madness that struck them."_

 _Dalenë nodded silently, and he continued. "In another two years, you would be of age for apprenticeship. The chapel of Mara, to avoid putting you to an orphanage, or out on the streets, is allowing me to take you in as an apprentice, as long as you attend a chapel school for the next two years, until you are of age. Is this acceptable to you? I know a cloth-dyer is hardly what your parents had in mind, but..." he swallowed. "My brother seems more unlikely every day to ever be of aid, and I would be grateful for half-competent help around the place. I seem to remember that you had an affinity for the art, when you were younger."_

 _For a moment, she was quiet, thinking. She remembered Solon's presence, as a child. She remembered his laughter, loud, cheerful, and infectious, floating up from the living room. She remembered arms swirling with every color of the rainbow, and a voice that wasn't afraid to speak with solemn dignity to a child who everyone else seemed to regard as beneath real conversation. She thought about a future as the person her parents had wanted, a rich merchant's wife, or something equally ridiculous, and the future she might glean as an orphan in an unforgiving city like Bravil - the Thieves' Guild might take her, but that was the best she could truly hope for. And then she thought about spending the rest of her days learning to take a skein of yarn, and turn it into a garment, or a tapestry, with her arms in a vat of swirling dye, and smiled. Relief sparked in Solon's eyes, and he grinned down at her._

 _"You had me worried there," he said, dropping a hand on her shoulder. "So-- shall we go, then?"_

 _With one last look at the burned shell of her parents' home, she turned and followed him out of the wreck._

* * *

The well-dressed man peered down at her perch in the rocks. He said nothing, only beckoned with one hand; a strange walking stick rested in the crook of his arm, the pinkish stone at its tip glinting brightly. She blinked, finding it hard to see into the sunlight from her shadowed cliff-side post. After a moment's hesitation, she climbed up onto the embankment, half-kneeling where the rocky slope met the level of the road.

His eyes were strange; they seemed to glow, though she supposed it could've been a trick of the light - doubtfully. That was important, the orange eyes that glowed. Why was that important? Orange eyes... his gaze was uncomfortably deep, and went on longer than she would have liked. Finally, he took a step forward, and offered his free hand. She grasped it, and he pulled her up to her feet.

"You're looking for someone," he said.

Dalenë nodded. "My friend Quidel. He went away, and I need him."

The stranger looked at her, his eyes questing. "I think I can help you," he told her gravely. "I know where you will find him, your friend Quidel." He paused, fiddling with his staff for a moment before continuing. "I have so much work to do, back home. And the people to see, to help. I need to find them, the work needs them. You know, you-- the people. You are one. A person. My person."

She nodded again.

"It's across the river," he said, gesturing off, opposite the rocks she'd been sitting on, down a long slope of grass, where the water sparkled through the trees. "Because I'm not opening the Door. South, and across the river." With an affectionate nod, he turned and strode off, heading North on the winding road, which twinkled golden for a moment in the sunlight as he passed out of sight.

After deliberating for a moment, she turned off the road, down towards the river. She had no better ideas of her own, and something in her instinctively trusted the stranger - why not? She followed her instincts when they told her not to trust, which was usually. It seemed natural to follow the opposite advice, as well. The slope was not unbearably steep, but as she continued over the crest, she found it far easier to run than walk. Towards the bottom of the hill, where the ground evened into a gentle plain, she startled a pair of deer who'd been grazing, and sank down onto the lush grass to watch them bound off between the trees. Their orange coats shone against the dark grays and greens of the lichened forest; the color was comforting, somehow, to her eyes.

Nearer the shore, there was a still puddle, nestled between two large rocks. She looked at it for a while, from the grass. Finally, drawn by the pretty moss on the rocks, all colored and lush, like life from another mind, or reality, she wandered over to look closer.

The image in the puddle leapt out, frightening her for a moment, before she realized it was her own reflection. She'd never changed out of the clothes she'd left the Chapel in - shapeless sackcloth, all dull and lifeless. The priests seemed to be of the opinion that color was some kind of unholy abomination. For Dalenë's part, she found it difficult to respect, let alone worship, any being of power who could somehow decide by observation that what the world really needed was more monotony. Honestly, it was ridiculous-- she never quite understood why one was supposed to worship the Nine, anyway. What did they do? Could they not do it without humanity? Why did they hate the Daedra? She'd asked Solon-- he'd shrugged, told her he had no problem with Nine or Daedra, as long as they had no problem with him. If there was anything Solon worshipped, it was his art. Which made sense to Dalenë as a child, and had never stopped making sense as she grew.

But this -- she looked down at the reflection again. This was unacceptable. She couldn't meet Quidel for the first time in years with not a shred of color on her person! Far from the city, it would take some doing. But not for nothing had Dalenë been a dyer's apprentice for so much of her formative years. Back when she'd done her best work, she'd used alchemist's tools: the mortar & pestle, the alembic, the retort - but none of these, she remembered, were at hand. There was an old pier to the South, though, a ways off, and she headed down towards it, leaping and springing over the rocky shores, delighting in the uneven dancing of it.

It took the better part of the morning to swim the river - slow as it was this late in the summer, she was still out of practice. Before too long, though, she’d gotten across, and lay on the bank, sun beating down on her position, prone on the smashed-up dock that lay there, just above the waterline. The pier lay in disrepair, and clearly had for a long time - the barrels, for the most part, were cracked and gaping, the boards rotted and split, and the pilings wind-gnawed halfway to their end. All that plus the little boat, beached with a hole blasted through the middle, told a story, and she sat down beneath the pier to read it. The sun shone hotly through the boards, though, and in the afternoon heat, her mind drifted off.

* * *

 __

“The onion extract is decent, but if you want a stronger color, you want to find a butternut tree, sometime in late summer,” Solon told her, gesturing to the basket on the top shelf. “There’s some up there, but I prefer to save it for the thicker fabric, when they add a commission for embroidery.” She nodded, and continued to grind the soft membranes against the pottery, delighting quietly in the patterns made by the lines as they shifted under the pestle. “And, obviously, blackberry makes an excellent purple - pokeberry is a little too pinkish for most of our uses, but it works on some fabrics.”

 _Dalenë finally scraped the strong-smelling onion paste out of the dish, into the covered pot. Solon gave her a quick smile and put it on the shelf next to the furnace-- there were a handful of additives, to cut down on smell, that needed to be fixed in before the mixture could be finalized in the heat. With a returning grin, she headed back outside to check on the sumac that was drying in the sun, noting with disappointment the lack of Khajiit lounging on the stone wall. Little bursts of sound, like exploding bells, sounded here and there around the courtyard; she ignored them. The tiny blue lizards that made them disappeared as soon as you looked straight at them, and no one else could see them - she couldn’t let herself be distracted, the sumac was important. It was also still not fully dry, she noted, but smelled good - like summer._

 _“Hey, come back in!” Solon called from the next room. “Dunno about you, but I’m ready for a lunch break.”_

 _Putting the roll of cloth she’d picked up back on the shelf, Dalenë headed through the doorway, grinning cheerfully at her friend, who’d pulled down a plate of cheese and bread - just about perfect for a warm day like today._

 _“I’d meant to ask you,” he began as she spread the cheese, “How was class today?”_

 _She made a wry face and shook her head. “Not terrible,” she told him. “At least I didn’t do anything utterly stupid today.” His response, a silently raised eyebrow, was only partially due to the full mouth. She shrugged. “I’ve been getting better. It’s just... the thing is, it’s not the Nine I have a problem with,” she explained, picking up a piece of bread._

 _Solon grinned across the table at her. “Well, that is fortunate,” he said, a note of - in her opinion, severely exaggerated - relief in his voice. “I hear it can be quite troublesome to keep up quarrels with the gods.”_

 _Dalenë gave him a withering stare. “You know what I mean, Solon. I don’t dislike the Nine, or their teachings. I just don’t see the point of worshipping them, you know?”_

 _“Such heresy!” He shook his head. “I should have expected it from a heathen Dunmer lass like yourself.”_

 _“Pfft,” she replied, mischief in her eyes. “You want heresy, try this: The Daedra seem a lot more interesting - and friendlier, to boot.”_

 _The dyer raised an eyebrow at his apprentice. “Oho! Really, now? You really are a heathen then, Dal. I don’t see the point of either, frankly, but don’t let the Temple hear that.”_

 _She shrugged. “I don’t really talk much there,” she told him. “Seems far too easy to get in trouble, especially with that ridiculous Ottus man hanging around. Half the time I don’t even know what the caning is for, but it doesn’t matter at this point. If the Nine are paying any attention at all to this world, I doubt somber, grayed clothing, tepid, repetitive 'hymns,' and carefully whitewashed history lessons are going to make them happy. And if they are, I want no part of them or their worshippers."_

 _Solon laughed. “As long as you don’t get carried away telling the priests that, it’s fine by me. Now eat up, we’ve got work to do.”_

 _Nodding, she complied._

* * *

It was hard to tell if the humming was crickets, or birds, or what, but it felt like the average late summer, early fall day, and she lay there, eyes closed, mind blank, until she felt the dock melting beneath her, growing sticky and soft and mudlike, the wooden liquid closing around her skin. It didn’t feel horrible, but it didn’t feel right, and she made herself sit up and look back down at it.

Solid wood, of course.

Of course.

She got up and went to have a look around. Sifting through the remains of supplies on the dock, she almost didn't see the ceramic bowl, laying on its side in the bottom of the barrel. It was a bit broken, but the missing piece was something to act as a pestle. All in all, she had the feeling this would be more involved than initially planned, but it was too late to change her mind now. With a cheerful tune on her lips, she headed into the woods to find a plant, the bowl tucked carefully under her arm.

Blackberry was by no means her first choice for a good color, but the pigment was strong, and it would do - for a meal as well as a dye, she thought, picking the more unripe ones for eating; the ripest would make stronger dye, with a bluer color-- which was important. It wouldn't do alone, of course. She had other things to find. Not wanting to get too far off course, she kept an eye on the river, mostly aiming South. After finding a squirrel's abandoned cache of walnut husks and two or three stalks of St. John's Wort, she set a more direct course for the water. Though most of the shore was silt, there were a few places with a good, coarse sand, for scrubbing; she knew better than to try to dye a cloth without first cleaning it off.

But dusk was falling, and the night found her curled in a hollow on the bank, her bowl set aside with the plants, still watching the stars. They didn't shift on her, like the ground did every time she looked at it. Groaning, weirdly atonal noises sounded-- too distinct to be real, too distant to understand. Dalenë curled tighter, not willing to fall asleep and leave herself unguarded, against the Watch or the Voices, or whatever made them. If Quidel had been here, she thought, he'd watch for her. And she for him.

The sudden, loud snap made her jump, even knowing it couldn't be real. And neither were the footsteps, no matter how convincing they sounded. Or the... shadow. Not shadows. That was new. She looked up to see a very solid silhouette standing over her, leaning jauntily on his cane, the stone glowing once again. Faintly luminous eyes watched her from the deeply shadowed face. She said nothing.

"I'll keep watch," he said, stepping down the bank. "Can't have any o' the wild trees carrying ye off, now. Or is it deers? Nah, they eat the trees. Or the leaves? Either way, they'll keep away. I can do that."

The lilt in his voice gave him away, and Dalenë, recognizing the traveler, nodded her thanks. He wasn't a stranger. Who was he? He felt so familiar, something in his voice, his eyes, his steps. He reminded her of colors, of questions, of moving shadows that kept her mind taut, in the quiet. Of Quidel, in a way - or the voices where Quidel wasn't. He wasn't safe. But she couldn't fear him.

"I don't think I can sleep," she told him, uncurling a bit. It was the truth-- her mind was refusing to settle, at the moment.

"Nonsense!" His teeth showed, grinning brightly in the dark beneath the stars. "You'll sleep, an I tell ye sleep." His cane rapped firmly on her shoulder - the blow was oddly comforting, and she felt the world around her dim. Too tired, really, not to sleep...

* * *

 __

"But why?"

 _Arvid raised an eyebrow - strange how much he reminded her of Solon at times, though they were truly nothing alike. Brothers, but... nothing alike._

 _"Because I told you to, apprentice," he said, putting a tone on the last word that ground her teeth together. "Solon will be gone a full season. Do you really want to start things off like this?"_

 _Dalenë shook her head and turned to go. She heard him clear the table behind her, wincing inwardly at the clatter of delicate instruments being haphazardly shoved aside, the carefully organized notes shuffled, the ingredients almost deliberately un-sorted. Solon would have been livid. But he was off in the Imperial City, and she was here with Arvid, who was... well. That wasn't important right now. She'd 'get lost,' as instructed, and find Quidel. They could surely find something to do._

 _"What, did he make a date or something?" Her friend's voice startled her as she turned out of the yard, and she turned to see the Khajiit's ruddy ears flashing from a nearby alley._

 _She snorted. "He wouldn't say, actually. 'Adult business,' as though I don't know exactly what that means. Of course, the orders for tomorrow are unimportant, the vats don't need to be cleaned, and the whole damn shop will just magically run itself while he runs off with some big-chested Nord!"_

 _Quidel quirked an ear at her. "A Nord? I always figured him for an Altmer type."_

 _Dalenë rolled her eyes. "Who cares? He'll chase anything that moves. Much like you, actua-- ow! Let go my ear, you jerk!"_

 _He gave her a mock-stern look. "If you're going to make Argonian jokes at my expense, I'll pull both of them off and you can go join 'em in Leyawin," he told her._

 _One of the fussy older Cyrodil ladies squinted at them suspiciously as they passed, and Quidel let go of her ear with a snort._

 _"I don't know," Dalenë sighed. "Maybe he's right. I'm not as bad at the trade as when I started, but I doubt I'll ever be as good as Solon wants me to be. And I'm no good for anything else..." she trailed off, shrugging._

 _Quidel frowned. "That doesn't sound right," he mused. "What do you mean, exactly?"_

 _"It's hard to..." she paused. Words weren't coming. "Sometimes, I just think I should... stop trying. End it, I guess. Take myself off his hands."_

 _He gave her a sharp look as they passed through the gates, over the footbridge. "It sounds wrong," he said. "Familiar, but wrong. You're listening to the madness again."_

 _Dalenë shrugged. "I guess so, maybe. It all sounds like the same, sometimes. It sounds like my own voice. Voices."_

 _"But it tells you..."_

 _"That I'm worthless, yes." She gritted her teeth. They'd had this conversation before, almost word for word._

 _"And a terrible person, I'm sure. Utterly without redeeming qualities?"_

 _She nodded._

 _"You should stop listening to the madness.”_

 _Dalenë managed a grin at her best friend. "Why? I listen to you."_

* * *

When she awoke, the traveler was fading from sight, like a sea-born mist in the dawn.

“Wait!”

He paused, half real, half gone, and looked back at her. “Well?”

“...Thank you.”

He laughed, a cackling, rollicking, cacophony, pitching alive like a dancing bear on fire. “Selfish reasons!” he nearly shouted. “I’ll have need of your services later, ye know.”

She frowned, reaching to pull herself up from the hollow. “But where?” she asked. “Where is it that you want me to go - and why?”

He regarded her silently for a moment, spinning his cane absently. “The Isles,” he said at last. “My home, my realm-- my own.” His voice was low, deep - quiet enough be competing with the wind on the grass, but it resonated in her collarbone like a gong. She was trembling, and she didn’t know why. “And yours!” he added, suddenly and incongruously cheerful for a moment, before his voice returned to the shadows. “You wouldn’t want to see them now - bleak, they are." Then his voice rose, like an excited battle crow-- "Dead, _dark_ , DULL - and not in the good way! I have work to do," he finished more levelly, "And so will you. And so will the rest of ‘em! Some are already at the Shrine, waiting. For me - and you. And others. Soon, they’ll see. You’ll see!” He pounded the ground with his cane for emphasis, raising sparks. “But for now, you hear. Go there!”

And with that, he vanished, leaving a perplexed Dalenë alone to to wonder at his words.


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dalenë meets up with a gaggle of fellow madmen.

The task would not be easy; without a needle, she couldn’t do any real kind of embroidery, making the design in her mind impossible to fully realize. But the seam of the sleeves was by no real standard ‘tight,’ and her fingers were nimble enough, and if she could pry loose a few nails from the planking...

Before too long, Dalenë had no sleeves; they had been replaced by a handful of cloth strips and half a hand’s spooled thread. The tunic itself needed dyeing, first - the empty barrel, maybe a cubit tall, would do. She dragged it off the dock, carefully anchoring it in the sand. The brackish water of the Niben was by no means ideal, but she was sure it would do well enough for now. The real problem, of course, was the fact that while it was being dyed, she would be without a tunic or shirt. But there wasn't anyone around, and the chapel's opinion was no longer of importance.

So it was that when she heard the noises begin in early evening, her tunic was soaking in colored water, and the strips of cloth that she'd torn were drying on a nearby rock. She cursed, glanced around, and dove under the dock, where she was hidden by the shadows, and the fallen pilings all around. The sounds seemed to be coming from a ways down the river, getting louder. There were occasional splashes, some voices-- but mostly, a pounding that she felt more than heard. It seemed to resonate in her sternum, to dictate her heartbeat, to pound its way through the channels and bindings in her mind, taking over her every perception, resonance and rhythm and the very shadows she hid in shook as it neared; the splashing, an isolated voice in her mind noted, was the opposite rhythm, when it was heard at all, on the offbeat.

"Eh, there-- it's a ruin now, but there."

She cursed inwardly-- the oars were visible now, dipping in and out of the water, on the far side of the pier. The vessel was approaching. Before long, it bumped up against the end, and feet leapt out, dark-skinned, but not elven. A Redguard, she thought, and the voice sounded right. Quieter than the voice she'd heard earlier.

"Dion, pull the oars as well. Sasha, make sure that knot's tight. Everything set? Excellent." Male, she thought, and carrying a tone of quiet authority. The steps thumped down the dock, closer, closer, and right over her, then leaping down to the sand. They were followed by a shorter stride, lighter-- very probably elven, but she hadn't seen them land-- and then the umistakable, quiet, padded footsteps of a Khajiit.

"We could scuttle it," another voice rasped, as the shadow currently overhead leapt to the ground, out of her field of vision. Confirming her perception, the accent was a Khajiit's rasping tongue. "We won't need it, and we can't take it-- why leave it?"

A third voice, unidentifiable in origin, but female, answered, "For the next few. You’ll find something else, Sasha. And Li, don't look now, but I don't think we're alone here."

Dalenë swallowed terror and shrunk back into the darkness under the docks, ready to claw, fight, throw sand in their eyes, anything.

"I saw," answered the Redguard. "Doesn't matter - probably a pilgrim like us, there's not much of a reason to be on this beach otherwise, and it looks like a crafting place. Either way, we'll set up campfire on the other side of the road. No point being intrusive, we'll only start on the wrong foot."

The next words were hissed into her ear, from a few inches away. "I can smell you, girl. I can smell you there, I know you're there, I smell your fear."

The boards between them were loose on this side, she knew. She was only wearing a breastband, as her tunic was still soaking, and that put her at a distinct disadvantage in mixed company-- but she didn't have a choice, and after a brief pause to gain composure, she threw herself at the gap, clawing with one hand, a fistful of sand in the other, aimed at where his eyes sounded like they were.

Taken aback, the Khajiit stumbled backwards, hissing and caterwauling, scrabbling at his face-- most of the sand had gone in his mouth, but some had touched the eyes and sensitive nose. Dalenë had been unprepared for his strength, though, and his first blow, wildly thrown, had her sprawling. She didn't let up, sprang towards his stumbling form to land on his chest, throwing both of them backwards towards the ground, and pummeled with all her might at his neck and face as he grappled, trying to throw her, before two strong pairs of hands pulled her forcibly off.

"Shit! Shit! Sasha, you idiot! What did you do?" The Redguard shouted. He had her right arm; the woman who had her left, apparently a Bosmer, was silent.

The Khajiit, spitting-- Sasha, apparently-- only cursed at first, but finally snarled, "She throws sand in my eyes, and it's me who's done something wrong?"

Dalenë couldn't actually see the elf roll her eyes, but it came across clear as day in her tone. "I heard you-- we both heard you. Stop acting like a child. And you--" Dalenë had stopped struggling as she realized it was pointless, and twisted to look, "Girl, if we let you go, be reasonable and don't rush him."

She nodded. She was outnumbered, and she wasn't going to flee and leave her clothes here. The two behind her exchanged a look, the Redguard shrugged, and they let go of her arms. She stretched a moment, to make sure nothing was broken, and brushed off.

"He said he could smell my fear. It sounded like a threat."

The Khajiit, his eyes red but clearing, shrugged. "Not the point, Dunmer."

"Sasha," the Bosmer - Dion, she guessed - said with the patience of a very tired merchant, "What have we said about provoking aggression to sate your bloodlust?"

Sasha spat into the sand.

The Redguard shook his head tiredly. "Come help me build a fire," he said. "Gathering the wood will take the edge off. Dion, if you could unpack the boat?" She nodded, and set off. Sasha went off towards a bit of driftwood that looked dry, and Li looked down at Dalenë for a moment.

"You're a pilgrim?"

She shrugged. "Depends. I'm not on the Wayshrine Pilgrimage, if that's what you mean."

"That's not what I mean. Are you on the Golden Road? The path to the Isles?"

That gave her pause. After thinking for a space, she nodded. "I think I am. It's... madness. Isn't it? I never thought I was truly mad, but... after everything that happened, after the city, and Quidel leaving... I don't know. The man-- not a man-- he said I should go to the Isles, they would be a home, he would help me find Quidel again. I think-- I think he was. Was,"

"Sheogorath," he finished. "The Madgod, and the Shivering Isles, his realm. Yes. That is where we are going, and you."

"Alright, then." She shrugged, half-saluted him, and walked back to her barrel. The tunic would stain her skin, but it looked nearly done, and she didn't want to continue through the night half-naked, so she pulled it on anyway. The strips should be dry by nightfall, and she would sew them blind, then.

As the sun went down, Sasha the Khajiit-- apparently just reaching the adult stages of his life-- finished gathering firewood, and Li began to build the mound up. Dion sat a little distance off, with Dalenë, who was using the final light of the day to finish working on her skirt. She'd pulled enough loose threads on the main seams to have two loose, un-bound trouser-legs, with a strip of cloth between them in the front and back. Now she was tying the loose threads off, stitch by stitch. It wasn't anything the temple would’ve approved, but it would do. And it afforded her two more strips of cloth, which she'd already dyed blue and black, in a marbled sort of pattern. Solon would've called it sloppy, but she always liked the weird, random effects of the style. She wrapped them around her shins carefully, tying off the very ends with another spare thread.

The strips that she'd made from the sleeves were mostly dyed black; she sewed them only at one end, over the threadbare patches. The way they fluttered so slightly seemed... right. Made her look more... fragmented. Which was also right. Dion had two pebbles, and was knocking them together in a strange rhythm, and humming. Dalenë found a spot fairly sheltered, away from the fire, and the sounds of the humming, the clicking, the fire crackling, lulled her to sleep on the shore of the bay.

* * *

The shadows were long and shifting; the wind howled. The man cloaked in darkness knelt - he still towered over her where she lay. His silhouette was sharp against the twilit sky, and his grip strong on her neck.

It was an old scene, a familiar figure. She waited, still and silent on the ground, as he brought the first to bear. The feeling of the hard point lingered on her skin, leaving an indent.

With one quick push, he drove it in. She felt the metal slide through the new-made hole in her skull, a grating sort of sensation. It pressed, not painfully, on the inside of her mind. Uncomfortable, subtly wrong - and then the second followed. Pain was not the word for it, the feeling of the spikes pressing in on the squishy-thinky parts of her head. The solid, comforting strength of the cloaked hand, the tickling dent on her skin, the 'thwack' sort of sound, the feeling of bone on metal...

The dream was evil. It was evil that she was still, beneath his hands of harm. It was evil to wait for him, in the twilight between sleep and sun. It was wrong that she lay, dimly aware of the world around her, aware of wakefulness, within reach of her mind, and allowed the dream to go on unhalted. The Nine would not see her to the afterlife; this was evil. She didn't care.

The nails lay fast in her skull, the dream fading to dawn’s gray light, and a river mist.

* * *

She awoke. The dream faded around her, but still she could feel the slight press of nails against the inside of her mind. She knew from experience that it would linger for the rest of the day; it didn’t make sense to bother about it. There was a grayish light in the air, like the one absent from the dream, in his eyes, and she knew she’d been wakening for an hour or so now. Soon, the sun would begin to show, through the trees. A little ways off, Dion and Li were lying on opposite sides of the mostly dead fire. Sasha was down on the very shore of the river, pacing restlessly.

Watching him, she wondered at the fire that seemed to burn beneath that tawny fur, the sparks in his eyes. Quidel had been reddish on the outside, but Sasha was fiery on the inside; where her old friend had held laughter, Sasha seemed to hold... something else. It was not frightening, she decided. It was something very nearly familiar; it seemed to her she had seen it somewhere else. The surf began to intrude on her thoughts, lulling her to a peaceful thoughtless slur, as she watched the light begin to take on warmth, and the last of the stars fade.

He kicked viciously at the sand, growing more and more energetic - the sound of rock on rock finally began to wake Dalenë from her stupor. She sat up and watched-- he was growing angrier, it seemed, kicking with a fury at the small dunes here and there, snarling aloud. With a shout, he finally turned from the sand, towards the rise on the beach, and snatched up a piece of wood that had been too waterlogged to burn. Moving erratically, he began to attack rocks with it, snarling further curses under his breath - some more loudly, some less.

“Let him be,” Li said from beside her. She hadn’t heard him approach, and started.

“I wasn’t going to interfere,” she replied, not looking away from the shore. “He has to burn it off on his own, I’d guess. I know the feeling.”

He glanced over at her for a moment. “With you it comes and goes? The energy, I mean, the wild.” She nodded. “I thought so. Sasha leans to the angry side of things - if he doesn’t have a target, he just needs to break something. He knows better than to just attack people, but he’s still tempted sometimes. Dion’s the other end. She’ll just sit and brood for days, if she isn’t given a reason not to.”

Dalenë nodded, registering this. It all fit, more or less, and it was no less than she’d expected from fellow - he’d called them pilgrims. She kicked at the sand for a moment, noting the shifting light in each grain. Then she looked back at the Redguard. “And you?”

He showed his teeth in what might qualify as a grin, if it had come from a bear or possibly a mountain lion. “Not here; not now.”

With a shrug, he stood and moved off, past Sasha, to their boat. Dalenë stretched before getting up and going back to her dyeing cache - she hadn’t used all the blackberries, and the remaining handful would make a decent breakfast.

* * *

“Of course the drum is coming. It’ll be on my back, not yours, so no need to gripe about it, Dion,” Li grumbled, tying off a knot on his knapsack. Dalenë watched curiously as they set up to go, lashing the oars of the boat to the dock, scattering the coals from the fire, wrapping up anything to go with them-- a drumskin, and four wooden circlets. Sasha noticed her look of curiosity, and wandered over.

“It’s held together by a spell he designed,” he said, his voice holding less of an edge than it had the previous night. “When he puts all four together in the right order, they bond and seal, so it doesn’t have that hollow sound you’d normally get. I don’t know how he did it.”

“Was that him playing, yesterday?” She found herself unsurprised by the sudden change in his demeanor - at least towards her. Apparently, he really had been just trying to give himself a target. She could understand that.

“Yes,” Sasha replied, his accent hissing the syllable just a bit. “It’s one of the things that keeps him held together so well - you see how he watches all of us? The drums in his head help him do that, but he has to let them out sometimes. Like on the water, there - they carry farther, so he needed to beat there.”

Dalenë nodded, glancing backwards, where the frame of a large circular drum stuck out over the silhouette of Li’s head, along with a rolled-up skin. It fit - no less, anyway, than her story did, or Sasha’s, or Quidel’s.

* * *

The sun filtered down through the trees as they made their way up the bank again, heading towards the road. Dion led; she said she could feel it pulling her, or calling her, or something, which was believable enough for them. The wind was picking up, and the shadows moved erratically beneath their feet as they walked. The ground did not seem as real as it could have been, and Dalenë found herself wondering if she'd stumbled into a dream. It seemed likely, in this place, at this time, beneath and above the shifting shadows.

Sasha seemed almost calm. He walked with a spring in his step, though, energetically, as a man with fire for blood might. She liked that idea; it seemed to fit him well.

"What?"

She blinked. The Khajiit was looking at her questioningly, and she realized she had laughed aloud.

"Nothing," she said quickly, more out of habit than anything. Li glanced back at her, but said nothing - not then, anyway. It wasn't until they'd sat down for a rest at a brookside, later, that he commented.

"None of us will lock you up for madness, or laughter," he said, pushing a stone into the water with his foot. "So don't lock yourself up, either. It's not worth it."

That was all he said, and neither Dalenë nor anyone else responded at all. After a few more minutes, Dion stood and moved off, heading uphill again; the rest followed.

"Fireblood," she told Sasha, when they'd been walking a little while. He grinned at her, a fierce but not displeased expression.

"Ah, that was your joke? It's probably true."

Surprised, she laughed again. He joined her this time; she liked his laugh, she thought. It was fierce and mad and fiery - it matched him rather well.

"My mother used to say that," he continued, as they rounded a stand of birch trees. "That I was born with fire in my veins, instead of blood. Clearly it hasn't bothered me, though."

Which was a baldfaced lie, of course, and he smiled innocently as he said it, letting her in for a moment. And she laughed with him, and the day wore on around their band, pleasantly enough.

* * *

“There are torches up ahead,” Li commented, his voice quiet, as the four of them stood in the gathering dusk. It was, in fact, why she thought they’d stopped - but Dunmer and Khajiit saw better at night. There were no voices up ahead, to go with the torches. Only a quiet humming, formless - but it carried well, through the woods. She wasn’t sure why it seemed so insistent, and began to wonder if she was the only one hearing it, until she saw Sasha’s ears swiveling to and fro as it wavered.

“That’s it,” Dion told them. “If you look - harder to see now, in the dark - there’s a big stone thing there, too, a statute or something like it.” She’d been very quiet since leaving the beach, barely saying a word to anyone but Li, and they all looked at her in something like surprise. It was true, though. Dalenë felt it. She could almost hear Quidel’s ringing laugh now, as though there was only a membrane, something like the skin of an empty sky, between them, and if she could only figure out what direction it lay in, she could reach him. Colors of Night, she missed him. Colors of Night?

Colors of Night. It was as good an oath to swear by as any - better than one of the Nine.

Quidel would approve, she would have to tell him when they met again. Without another word, she grinned, threw back her head, and laughed. Long, loud, hard - a maniacal cackle, it had been called, and she meant it with all her heart. Sasha clapped her on the shoulder, and his rough bark of a laugh joined hers. When she felt she could take a step without bursting into light and noise, she bounded - it was impossible to walk sedately - towards the torchlight, and the rest went with her.

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose I should clarify, in case the symptoms are not as clear as I had thought to make them. Dalenë is schizo-affective-- that is, exhibiting symptoms of both manic-depression and schizophrenia.


End file.
